Steve Parsons blog-a-log

ON LEARNING

On Sunday I was at a church, speaking at both their morning and evening services. I enjoyed it. Preaching is essentially talking about what you have learned/are learning. “Here’s what I’ve learned; here’s what the scriptures say; here’s what I’ve learned about what the scriptures say.” And so to preach you have to learn. In fact, to lead in any capacity you have to keep learning.

So early Monday morning I left my hosts house and headed down the motorway to a gathering of songwriters. We spent two days together learning how to become better, deeper, broader, wiser songwriters. It was an enriching and stretching couple of days. The kind of days where you fall into bed at night time exhausted and happy.

Over those two days I spent time with songwriters with reputations for consistently delivering great songs that are literally sung around the world. I listened to the deep and insightful thoughts of an international missions director. I heard from one of the most highly regarded worship leaders of the last decade. I listened intently to a producer who challenged our song-writing mind-sets. I watched a video interview of a man who charges business leaders thousands of pounds for his wisdom and insight. I sat in a room with 4 other guys I didn’t know and wrote a song with them in 40 minutes. I filled page after page of my journal with notes and quotes.

It worries me when people stop learning. Or at least when people become less actively engaged in learning. Of course there are the life lessons that we all learn; don’t overload your credit card, whisper in the elevator, drive carefully. But most of these lessons are passively learned. “I was educated at the University of Life” the saying goes. And we do all learn a multitude of things in a passive way. These are the ideas and lessons that are caught rather than taught.

The problem with only learning passively, is that you can start to draw the wrong conclusions about life and your engagement with the world around you. For example, the woman who has been hurt by a series of bad relationships who then draws the conclusion that she should never trust anyone again. She’s passively learned that relationships are difficult and that men can hurt her. But instead of withdrawing from all relationships, she needs to actively learn how to choose a more suitable partner and then actively learn how to make that relationship work.

Putting yourself in a place of active learning isn’t about becoming an academic. Rather it’s about becoming better at living life, better at leading, writing, driving, preaching, listening, speaking, cooking, engaging in your chosen pursuit.

After my two songwriter learning days, I returned home and the next day spoke to a group of young people. Back to leading again – and so the cycle continues. Learn, lead, learn, lead, learn, lead is the rhythm that brings forward momentum. And so get yourself a journal. Take notes. Jot down quotes. Read some books. Talk to some people. Attend some seminars. Learn, learn, learn.